Over 350 year-old sermon was found

2017/09/12

From October 2016 until January 2017, staff member of NSZL Árpád Maczelka performed exploratory work in Florida as a researcher of Mikes Kelemen Program. The program focuses on preserving the diaspora’s material heritage, collecting its elements in a systematic manner, transferring them to Hungary and making provision for their appropriate utilization. Material heritage includes, among others, the book stock of bequests, family correspondence, as well as piles of documents once stored in attics. Head of the Kossuth Club of Sarasota helped our colleague with getting to North Carolina, where he managed to acquire a sermon collection originating from the 17th century, and belonging to it, a manuscript dating back to 1655. Zoltán Béla Horváth, who was born in Csorna, emigrated to the Unites States in 1956. He took with him folders containing several 19th-century documents owned by and related to his family. In addition to the two important and valuable documents, he also donated these files to the archives.

The more than 350-year old sermon text written in Hungarian has been restored by staff members of the National Archives of Hungary within the framework of the Reformation Project of NAH, and it was made available and researchable for everyone by the Hungaricana public collection portal.